, in beirut >> brangham: i spoke with jane ferguson a short time ago.t jane, presidump today stronglying that he is going to militarily strike syria for this laticest ch weapons attack. how are those threats beingar where you are? >> in the region, william, nobody's really responding definitively yet to those words from president trump and that's largely because no one knows yet sponding to.ll be of course, as you say, it sounds like a clear threat for militari , but it's not really a wecific one. >> brangham: the a counterstrike that happened earlier today and many believe israel perpetrated that counterstrike. if it was israel, th may not be a retaliation to the chemical weapons attack, it may be more about israel's concern over ira in syria. is that right? >> that's much more likely, william. for the israelis, their main concern for the last few years basically since an has been involved in this war, since 2013 when wstarted to see hezbollah, the militant group from here in leban move into syria, the israelis have been concerned about mang sure they n't build their capacity just ac

. >> sreenivasan: newshour weekend special correspondent jane ferguson joins us from beirut to discuss the reaion in the middle east.as thereeen some time for this to settle. what's the reaction been? >> in lebanon, we've seen condemnation of the attack from the president here. he is a christian who is allied with hezbollah. he himself has said that the missile strikes will impede all ongoing attempts to end the suffering of the syrian people. unsurprisingly, we have also seen condemnation coming from hezbollah themselves, calling this a "trilateral treacherous american, british, french aggression against syria."w ose, of course, are voices from the very much pro-assad ngs here.h i think anybody who is anti-assad or pro-opposition is not exactly celebrating in the streets here, as we have seen in damasc, for those who are backing the government there. they have been celebrating. but those whare anti--assad are likely to see this as something that's not necessarily going to change the course of the war. it won't really change assad's ability to kill his own people and attack them with t